Sometimes a lockup is accompanied by a blank screen or a screen on which the mouse does not react to movement. In this case, there are a few ways to try to get the system to respond:
Hold down the Alt button and tap the Tab key. This should minimize the window.
Hold down the Alt key and tap the F4 key. This should close the current window.
If your keyboard has one, hit the Windows key. This should bring up the Windows Start menu.
Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys, then tap Delete once. This will bring up the Task Manager. From here you can manually shut down the game.
If these steps fail to get you out of the lockup, you will have to restart your system. If you cannot turn the system off normally try holding down the power button for ten seconds.
Once the computer is back up, try the following to troubleshoot this situation:
Make sure your system meets the minimum requirements for the game.
Click here for assistance in finding the minimum requirements
for the game.
Make sure your drivers and system files are as up to date as possible. The computer might be giving an instruction to a device that simply does not know how to proceed.
Click here for instructions on updating drivers.
Make sure that there are no extra programs running in the background that might interfere with the game’s execution.
Click here for instructions on ending your background tasks.
Some of these lockups could be sound related. Lowering sound acceleration is a good way to test this.
Click here for instructions on changing your sound acceleration.
Check to make sure you have installed all of the patches available for the game
To check for new patches:
Click on the Start button in the lower left hand corner of your screen
Select All Programs
In the list of programs find your game folder
The default should be in the EA Games or EA Sports folders.
Click on the Check for Update or Auto-Update icon
This will force the game to check for updates
If the above steps fail, uninstall the game completely and then reinstall it.
Also, you can try the game on a separate computer. If the same thing happens, then it could be a defective disk.